Customer Reviews

Alley Life in Washington: Family, Community, Religion, and Folklife in the City, 1850-1970 (Blacks in the New World)

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This book details a fascinating and lost aspect of Washington DC life, the many thousands who once lived in the alley houses. The grew up in these allies a close knit though often troubled and impoverished community of mostly African Americans. Despite their poverty they were not isolated as so many poor are today. They lived just behind some very wealthy homeowners and had access to the wider parts of the city than today when the poor are largely segregated east of the river. Sadly the Government condemned these houses in the 1950s and ordered all the allies closed. The poor were huddled into "garden" apartments and other arrangements such as the Ellen Wilson Dwellings, and the Arthur Caper developments. This book details well the live they lived, the struggles they faced and how the end came to this facet of DC life. The book is filled with drawings and charts, as well as pictures.

I very disappointed I order a new book and received a used book written and high lighted in yellow, No response from Abby Press to fix this issue.